


Reading it Wrong, Maybe?

by svtsail



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28086423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svtsail/pseuds/svtsail
Summary: The problem with being in love with one Kwon Soonyoung, Jihoon thinks bitterly, is that Soonyoung flirts with literally everyone.(This is just basically a story where Jihoon pines and misunderstands and Soonyoung is just confused)
Relationships: Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Lee Jihoon | Woozi
Comments: 7
Kudos: 107





	Reading it Wrong, Maybe?

A few things about Jihoon:

He liked writing music in every genre that you can think of. He loves pop music, but he would rather listen to old ballad songs of the ’80s when he’s all alone. He didn’t have a favorite color, even though he had told Jeonghan once that he likes the color red (but then he tended to wear more black than red, though). He doesn’t usually drink coffee and would mostly prefer drinking a can of coke than any other drink. He had lived in Busan but then had to transfer to Seoul for work. He had produced hundreds of songs during his almost seven years career as a producer. And he was in love with Kwon Soonyoung.

No, really.

At some point in his life, probably around the third time, Soonyoung smiled at him as if Jihoon had hung the stars in the sky and unlocked every secret of the universe, Jihoon being desperately enamored of Soonyoung had become an incontestable fact, just another unequivocal statement. The sky was blue, gravity existed, and Jihoon was in love with Soonyoung. Fact.

Another indisputable fact was that Soonyoung was the most irritating flirt in the history of humankind. No one knew better than Jihoon. He’d witnessed Sooyoung smiling beatifically at waitresses and shamelessly complimenting baristas and charming free popcorn out of movie theater ushers on too many occasions not to know that. 

So honestly, Jihoon shouldn’t have been surprised when he breezed through the front doors of the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel, ignoring the screaming, sign-toting people behind him, and was informed that Kwon Soonyoung had secluded himself in the penthouse suite with Prince Lee Seokmin, the crown prince of some tiny island in Korea and the heir to one of the biggest companies in the world. Soonyoung has been invited by the prince himself for some coffee that morning, but since then, no one has ever seen the two, nor did the two even went outside.

“There were some thumping noises if you know what I mean. Like the headboard hitting the wall or something,” the prince’s butler added unhelpfully. He even had the guts to wiggle his eyebrows. Jihoon glared as he tried to call Soonyoung’s phone again and again. It didn’t work.

“Thanks,” he grumbled at the butler and stalked off to sit outside of the door to the penthouse suite. 

It wasn’t, Jihoon reminded himself that he had any claim to Soonyoung in the first place. He was Soonyoung’s just as much as the other artists that he had worked with. But when Soonyoung was so damn flirty with almost anything that moved… well, it made sense that Jihoon would get this worked up over it, considering how he felt about Soonyoung. Nobody liked to know that the person they sort of wanted to marry flirted with anything that had a pulse. Especially not with high profile people like a very wealthy prince from a nourishing island, Jihoon added petulantly.

He sat seething outside of the penthouse for another hour, alternating between snapping at people who call him from his phone and playing 2048 on it. Nothing was working, though — he couldn’t stop wondering what Kaito was doing with that prince. There was absolutely no need for Soonyoung to lock himself up with the prince just for a cup of coffee, and even if there was, it wouldn’t take the whole day alone together to have that done.

Jihoon continued to seethe until there was a loud, resounding bang from inside the room. Instantly being alarmed, he tucked his phone into his back pocket and approached the door cautiously, with the prince’s butler and other hotel staff following his lead. He didn’t get closer than a meter before the doors exploded outward in an explosion of white powder, which he identified as flour.

And that made him think why there was such a thing in the first place?

Groaning, Jihoon batted the air until it cleared enough for him to walk forward into the room. He surveyed the lavish, nicely decorated room with a mixture of annoyance and despair before stopping to glare at the equally lavish and nicely decorated brunette prince sitting on the bed. He giggled when he met his eyes, fair skin suffused with a flush. Jihoon tried not to think about how or why he was flushed. That was definitely not something that he needed to know for certain.

“Are you the prince?” He asked with probably not as much respect as a member of a royal family warranted, but he couldn’t help but notice how well he was fitted in his royal robes and just how handsome he is. He couldn’t imagine Soonyoung turning him down.

“Yes, I am,” the prince smiled at him. “And you must be Jihoon-ssi, right?”

Taken aback, Jihoon blinked at him with growing unease. How could he have — He cut himself off. Obviously, Soonyoung had told him something, the little shit. Probably something terribly unflattering, too, like how Jihoon trailed after him like a puppy without a home just to make sure that Soonyoung can’t flirt on the way back. “Uh….yes.”

“Oh, I see.” The prince giggled, lifting one dainty hand to cover his lips. “Well, in that case, Soonyoung just left through that door.” He gestured towards the seemingly hidden door, which, upon closer inspection, appeared to be still gaping open.

“Thank you,” Jihoon mumbled. He felt his eyes following him as he crossed the room, feet sinking in the plush wine-red carpet.

Predictably, Soonyoung was long gone, the hallway connected to the hidden door bare of everything but a plain white card that read _Almost got me, Jihoon! xxxxxxxxxx Soonyoung (call me when you get back home!)_ written in Soonyoung’s messy handwriting. Jihoon picked it up, sighed — typical Soonyoung behavior, leaving no less than ten kiss marks — and tucked it into his back pocket just as the prince’s butler barged in from the door, demanding an explanation.

The next few hours were spent interrogating the prince, who somehow deemed it appropriate to send Jihoon suggestive winks and once overs through the entire procedure. Jihoon generally ignored him, instead of choosing how he was going to sulk when he gets home (he was thinking coke and another all-nighter producing music, possibly with a take out of chicken or two if he manages to get himself even more depressed by thinking of Soonyoung and his stupid flirting on the way home).

That plan didn’t end up working out, because when Jihoon had finally gotten home (after he had managed to brood about Soonyoung on the taxi ride home, which mean he would need to call for a chicken delivery), Soonyoung was perched on his bedroom’s windowsill. He was already out from the clothes Jihoon remembered that he was in that morning, but his hair still in a mess. He was also flushed and breathless and gorgeous, so Jihoon was a little conflicted.

“You didn’t call me when you got home, Jihoon. I was so worried. What if you’d been attacked by a tiger on your way home?” Soonyoung drawled when Jihoon stopped in the doorway to half-heartedly glare at him, as he hadn’t just spent the whole day doing unquestionable activities with some random prince. He pushed a handful of his disheveled hair out of his face and grinned impishly, moonlight throwing his features into sharp, handsome relief. Jihoon hated him (as much as someone who loved him could).

“First of all, tigers can’t be found just roaming around the streets, and second of all, don’t you have better things to do that creep on me?” Jihoon asked once he had finished rubbing his temples and asking whatever deities might’ve been listening why he had ever fallen for such an annoying person. “Like, I don’t know, hang out with royalty or whatever?” He couldn’t keep a hint of bitterness from his tone. “Lock yourself in a room with a crown prince for over twelve hours?”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Soonyoung sighed theatrically before dropping into the room, feet barely making a sound against the carpet. He spread his arms, lifting his eyebrows at Jihoon when Jihoon didn’t immediately rush to embrace him or whatever he expected/was used to. “Jihoonie, you know that you’re the only one for me.”

Great, Soonyoung’s flirting. Just what Jihoon needed. He wondered, self-destructively, if Soonyoung had used that line on the prince, too.

“I bet you tell all the pretty people that,” he remarked a little sharply, angling away to flip the lights on instead of looking at Soonyoung’s stupid smirky smile. You’re not special, and he reminded himself pointedly. He smiles like that with everyone. You’ve seen it. (Although Jihoon couldn’t exactly remember that last time he had, but.)

When he turned back, Soonyoung was frowning a little. In the glow of fluorescent lights, he looked more lost than wild and adventuring as he tugged at the hem of his shirt and swiped a droplet of sweat off his forehead. “Are you — did I do something?” He asked.

Faced with the soul-crushing power of Soonyoung’s puppy eyes, Jihoo didn’t stand a chance. Blowing out a breath, he shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I’m just getting worked up over nothing.” Because it really was nothing. Soonyoung’s flirting was nothing new. Jihoon was the one in the wrong, lashing out for no reason as he had.

“Jihoonie?” Soonyoung asked, hesitant as he reached out with one hand, and Jihoon shook his head, dislodging the thoughts.

“Why don’t you take a shower, and then we can watch a movie? I’ll let you pick,” he offered, taking a step backward.

For a moment, something flashed across Soonyoung’s face — it sort of resembled the look Soonyoung got whenever someone mentioned his dead grandfather, with the way that it wasn’t quite angry but not entirely sad, either — but it was gone so quickly, replaced nearly instantaneously with Soonyoung’s usual miles-wide smile, that Jihoon decided he’s imagined it. “Is that your way of trying to cuddle with me, Ji-hoo-nie?” He clipped Jihoon’s name on the vowels and slurred the consonants sloppily, somehow making it sound far dirtier than Jihoon previously had thought possible, and Jihoon fought back a flush, schooling his expression.

“What’s that? You want me to order some very spicy tteokbokki? Well, it’s not that late for that, so if you insist…” He closed his door on Soonyoung’s squawk of horror, dropping his forehead against the doorframe to take a moment just to breathe and collect himself.

_______________________________________

So for a while after that, Jihoon’s (admittedly irrational) jealousy wasn’t really a problem. As usual, he spent too much time with Soonyoung, dragging him out to his meetings with other artists and to buy more groceries for his depleting supply at the house. Soonyoung did the same thing to him when he also dragged Jihoon to his dance studio every chance he got. Basically, they were “sickeningly cute and joined at the hip,” as Jeonghan liked to call them.

(“We’re not exactly joined at the hip,” Jihoon used to exasperatedly complain every time he said it, but Jeonghan started replying with, “Then where do you want to be joined with him?” With some lewd eyebrow waggling, and yeah, Jihoon learned not to respond to him whenever he said things like that. He didn’t know when he’d lost his innocence and developed a knack for innuendos, but he missed the days when he used to blush at “kiss”.)

Things came to a head, however, at Wonwoo’s twenty-fifth birthday party.

Someone (read: Junhui, who still claimed to hate Wonwoo even though they’d been grudging friends for almost eight years now) suggested some pretentiously named bar in Seoul, and, despite making snide comments about Junhui’s questionable taste, Wonwoo agreed to have his party there. Which wasn’t a bad thing; for all that, Jihoon agreed that Junhui had a mildly dubious taste when it comes to a lot of things, the bar was fine — classy, even. It had those annoying minimalist paintings on the walls, which Jihoon figured had to be a hallmark of a refined establishment.

No, the bar wasn’t the problem. The girl was.

She was pretty, Jihoon could admit. Probably even beautiful. She had perfectly straight hair two shades lighter than chestnut brown, and unremarkable brown eyes made remarkable by her skillfully applied makeup, and she was wearing the sort of deceptively simple outfit that looked plain but probably cost as much as several yachts and possibly a private jet or two. She carried herself with confidence and a smile, and a lot of floral perfume. Overall, probably one of the prettiest girls Jihoon had met in a long time, which was saying a lot.

Soonyoung was in the middle of telling Jihoon a story about the last time he’d seen Wonwoo get drunk, cheerily ignoring how a red-faced Junhui was doing a dangerously long line of shots on the far side of the bar when the girl sidled up and sat down on the chair beside Jihoon’s.

“Hey there. I’m Younghee,” she beamed, somehow managing to stick her hip out while sitting down, and Jihoon smiled hesitantly at her.

“I’m Jihoon,” he replied, trying not to look at Soonyoung. He extended one hand, prepared to give her a short handshake, and then politely turn away, but Younghee latched onto his hand with both of hers. She was wearing a lot of rings, Jihoon noted, and her nails were painted deep, deep red, the color of sun-dried tomatoes.

Behind him, Soonyoung cleared his throat, and Jihoon jerked his hand out of Younghee’s grip, chancing a glance over his shoulder at him. Soonyoung looked — well, not quite put out, but definitely getting there.

“Sorry,” Younghee giggled, but she didn’t sound apologetic in the slightest. Her eyes flickered up and down Soonyoung momentarily (Jihoon felt a stab of annoyance — couldn’t she be at least a little subtle about checking him out?) before she returned her gaze to Jihoon, leaning forward a bit. “So what are you up to tonight, Jihoon-ssi?”

Opening his mouth to give her a vague, “We’re here for a friend’s birthday,” Jihoon was surprised when Soonyoung shouldered forward, a little roughly, to interrupt Younghee’s line of sight.

“Just hanging out. I’m Soonyoung, by the way,” he grinned, a little manic and a lot charming, and Jihoon’s heart sank down past his toes. Oh. So Soonyoung was going to flirt with her. Okay. Fine. He could deal with that. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t witnessed this, like, hundreds of times before.

Jihoon was so busy sighing internally that he almost missed the way Soonyoung’s hand suddenly curled around his wrist, fingers. Warm and soft but far too tight for comfort. Frowning, Jihoon glanced up at Younghee, who was lifting her artfully penciled eyebrows, then Sooonyoung, who refused to look at Jihoon. Was that Soonyoung’s way of warning Jihoon to back off, as if Jihoon had any sort of interest in Younghee? He clenched his jaw with irritation.

Younghee, on the other hand, rolled her neatly lined eyes. Jihoon was admittedly impressed at how sharp she’d managed to get the little wingy part of her eyeliner. “Nice to meet you, Soonyoung-ssi.” She leaned out, smiling over Soonyoung’s shoulder at Jihoon. “So, Jihoon —“

“What are you doing in a place like this?” Soonyoung broke in, angling himself, so he blocked Jihoon completely. From what Jihoon could see (which wasn’t much), Soonyoung’s smile was oddly sharp, too intense for trying to hit on someone. Jihoon was baffled. “Rare for a pretty thing like you.”

“I was on my way to not being alone, actually,” Younghee replied, and was that a hint of snappishness in her tone? Jihoon tried to duck around Soonyoung to get a better look at her face, but before he could, Soonyoung was pulling him away by the arm, through the front doors of the bar and into the icy night air.

“Let’s go home,” Soonyoung mumbled, one hand still clasping Jihoon’s forearm, and Jihoon stood in the middle of the sidewalk, utterly bewildered before he smacked Soonyoung on the bicep hard enough that Soonyoung grunted and let him go.

“‘What the hell just happened?” Jihoon demanded as Soonyoung rubbed his shoulder and made wounded sounds. “Why are you worked up over some random girl?”

Soonyoung looked at him, hand still pressed to his upper arm. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“No,” Jihoon snapped, irate with the whole situation. Soonyoung was not allowed to get bent out of shape just because he’d wanted to flirt with some girl in a bar. Jihoon was the one who had to put up with the flirting. He crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not obvious, and if you don’t explain what just happened back there, I’m going back in and ask Younghee or whatever her name is.”

That made Soonyoung’s eyes flash. “Don’t,” he said lowly, and it sounded like a strange combination of pleading and seriousness. “Jihoon. Don’t.”

Oh, okay. That was how he was going to be then? “You’d better explain, then,” Jihoon hissed.

Shaking his head, Soonyoung ran a hand through his hair until it stuck up in clumps. “Jihoon,” he said, and there was an imploring edge to his voice now. “It’s - It’s really nothing. It’s not important. Please, can we just leave?”

And somehow, even though Jihoon had been ready to go on a rampage and knockdown telephone poles and generally be destructive, the beseeching tilt to Soonyoung’s tone was enough to make him bite back a sigh and rub the bridge of his nose, exasperation bleeding out of him until he just felt tired.

“Fine,” he grunted, whirling to stalk off towards the main street. “Fine, but I’m going to find out eventually.”

Jihoon was halfway down the sidewalk when he heard, “I hope you do,” from behind him. He steadfastly convinced himself he was hearing things because what could that possibly mean?

______________________________________

It was sort of funny how well Jeonghan knew Jihoon.

No, really. Jeonghan figured out the whole Soonyoung situation approximately three years before he did, and his only response to Jihoon’s frantic “Oh my God I’m in love with Soonyoung what do I do what do I do” was “About time. May or June wedding?” He also had the uncanny ability to know whenever something was wrong — for instance, the time that he got into an argument with Soonyoung about which soda is better.

Now it was different. Jeonghan took one look at him and immediately demanded, “What happened with Soonyoung this time?” And Jihoon was helpless to fend him off.

“I just don’t get it,” Jihoon mumbled, rubbing his thumb off the rim of his milkshake glass. They’d relocated to a nearby cafe sometime during Jihoon’s ten-minute rant about Soonyoung’s flirtatiousness. The waiter kept casting concerned glances at them, but Jihoon couldn’t bring himself to care. “He’s always so — ugh with, like, everyone, including me. And it probably shouldn’t annoy me so much, since I’ve known from the start that he’s a flirt, but it’s just… I don’t know. I hate it.”

Across the table, Jeonghan prodded at his temples. “Ohh my God,” he mumbled under her breath before he met Jihoon’s eyes. “Jihoon, Soonyoung has never flirted with me.”

“What?” Blinking, Jihoon stared at him. Even he could tell that Jeonghan was gorgeous, and he was practically his brother. “But…”

“Exactly.” Jeonghan lifted his eyebrows pointedly. “If Soonyoung flirts as much as you say he does, then why doesn’t he flirt with me or Mingyu or Wonwoo or even Junhui?”

“Because you’re all his friends, and it would be weird?” Jihoon tried hopefully, and Jeonghan leveled him with a flat are you shitting me look.

“Oh, and you and Soonyoung aren’t friends?”

“Okay, but,” Jihoon began, and he found he couldn’t go on. He coughed awkwardly, staring at the poster advertising a cafe special on the wall behind Jeonghan. “Oh, look. You can get a strawberry latte and strawberry shortcake for just five thousand won.”

Jeonghan looked spectacularly unimpressed.

“‘Five thousand won,” Jihoon tried, futilely.

“Anyway,” Jeongahn continued, acting as if he hadn’t said anything, “from what you’ve told me, that situation at the bar wasn’t because of him wanting to flirt with her. It was him being jealous.” He lifted his eyebrows expectantly, clearly waiting for him to come to some obvious conclusion.

But Jihoon just scowled, confused and a little hurt. “Of who?” Of Jihoon himself because Younghee had originally approached him? Because Soonyoung hadn’t caught her eye at first? The thought made him slightly ill. She had been pretty, but still —

Openmouthed, Jeonghan stared at him for a long, long moment before he groaned and dropped his head against the table with a loud clunk that signified the death of several brain cells.

Jihoon watched with mild concern. “Are you having an aneurysm?”

“You are so dense,” he said when he lifted his head again, forehead red where he’d hit it. Jihoon blinked, confused, but Jeonghan won’t elaborate, and the conversation soon turned to more mundane topics, like how Jeonghan was planning to open another flower shop in the city and Jihoon’s production plans.

_______________________________________

Despite his talk with Jeonghan, Jihoon wasn’t expecting to bare his heart to Soonyong out of nowhere.

It went like this. They were at Jihoon’s kitchen table on a Saturday afternoon — not unusual at all. Jihoon was in the middle of working on his lyrics for a new song, and Soonyoung was idly practicing his dance moves that involve an almost impossible feat of flexibility to do when Soonyoung commented brightly, “You’re getting pretty far in those lyrics, aren’t you? Beauty and brains — aren’t you just perfect,” and Jihoon sort of — snapped.

He honestly didn’t mean to sound so vehement, though. Even as he half-yelled, “Will you stop with the flirting if you don’t mean anything by it,” he was aware of just how insane he sounded.

Soonyoung was staring wide-eyed at him, hands suspended in midair. “What?” He croaked, taken aback.

Sucking in a deep breath, Jihoon threw down his pen and stood up to start pacing. Anything to avoid looking directly at Soonyoung’s face. “Look, I know that it’s your personality, and that’s just the way you are, but you are flirting with everything that moves is getting sort of annoying.”

“Wait,” Soonyoung said. He sounded a little choked. “Wait, what?”

“That time with the prince,” Jihoon steamrolled on helplessly spreading his arms, “and the time at the bar, where you just — you flirt with everyone, and I know that’s why you flirt with me too, but it’s sort of hard to deal with, so. Just. Could you stop doing that, maybe?” He cleared his throat. Soonyoung was looking at him unblinkingly, eyes distractingly wide. Jihoon (a bit dreamily) noticed just how long and dark his eyelashes were, and then he had to remind his brain that he was angry at Soonyoung, dammit, and it wasn’t the time to count Soonyoung’s eyelashes like some kind of obsessed stalker.

“I don’t….what?” Soonyoung shook his head as if to shake away Jihoon’s words. “I don’t flirt with everyone. I literally only flirt with you.”

“Oh, sure,” Jihoon responded bitterly, running his hands through his hair as he leaned against the kitchen door and avoided Soonyoung’s gaze. He felt very tired all of a sudden. “Sure, you didn’t lock yourself in a room with a prince for a whole day. Sure, you didn’t shove me out of the way to hit on a girl at a bar.” He shook his head at Soonyoung. “Not buying it.”

“No, really, you’ve got it wrong.” Soonyoung hurried to get back on his feet. That seemed to just get Jihoon’s teeth on edge. “No, that thing with the prince —“ He flushed a little, strangely enough. Jihoon was reluctantly drawn in by the way color filled his cheeks. “That wasn’t me — flirting with him, or anything. He invited me for coffee in his room, and he was just really nice.”

“Nice.” Jihoon was surprised at how uninflected he made the word sound. “Oh.”

“Not like that,” Soonyoung insisted, strangely fierce as he skirted around the kitchen to get to Jihoon. “We got to talking, and I…” He coughed, placing a hand over his mouth. It was a nervous tick of his that Jihoon had noticed and cataloged years ago. “I brought up this — this guy that I’ve been in love with for, like, eight years, and, well. It was nice to talk to someone about it.”

“A guy,” Jihoon muttered hollowly. Oh, great, so Sooonyoung did like someone, though Jihoon didn’t know how he had the time to meet other people when he spent so much time with Jihoon —

“ A guy who’s a producer and likes Avengers so much that we made a couple of trips to the cinema just to watch every release and has loads of coke supply in his studio,” Soonyoung added, and his eyes were burning when they locked with Jihoon’s. “A guy whose name is Lee Jihoon.”

Oh.

He felt as if he was listening from underwater, slowly drowning in his own surprise, as Soonyoung went on, talking faster and faster. Another nervous tic of his. “And that time at the bar, I wasn’t — it wasn’t because I wanted to flirt with her, really, it was just… She was looking at you like she wanted to — I don’t know, she was just looking at you in a bad way, and I didn’t want her to, so I just… I…” He blew out a breath. “So yeah. I don’t know why you thought I was, uh, flirty with everyone, but it’s just you.” The look he sent Jihoon was somehow both hopeful and desperate. “It’s always been just you.”

And really, what was Jihoon supposed to do in response to that, other than close the distance between them until he had Soonyoung backed up against the opposite wall and Soonyoung’s lips against his?

Kissing Soonyoung was ridiculously good, Jihoon discovered, not that he’d expected it to be anything less. Soonyoung’s mouth was pleasantly warm, with a bit of giving to it that Jihoon relentlessly took advantage of, and Soonyoung’s hips were the perfect shape to mold his palms against, dig his fingertips into. The little sounds he made, too — those were incredible, somehow amplified when Jihoon tasted them directly on his own tongue.

They parted eventually when Jihoon’s lungs reminded him that oxygen was a necessary part of living. Jihoon didn’t go far, though, resting his forehead against Soonyoung’s as they caught their breaths.

“You’re not allowed to flirt with anyone except me,” Jihoon mumbled nonsensically. He winced at the possessiveness of the statement — wow, way to scare him off — but Soonyoung just rolled his eyes, unbearably fond, and surged forward to mutter, “I never did, you idiot,” straight into Jihoon’s mouth.

Well. Jihoon could live with that.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this short story huhuhuhu. If you want to you can always hit me up on Twitter @svtlayag.


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